Job Searching Tools, Essay Example

The explosion of online job search sites has greatly diminished the amount of jobs found in metropolitan newspapers. Few years ago, the newspaper’s want advertisement section every Sunday was five to six separate sections long. Today the Sunday want ads are usually only one thin section. The traditional print want ads are slowly disappearing. The social media sites every heard the most about (i.e. Facebook and MySpace) are probably the first stop on everyone’s job search. What these sites have been going for them is name recognition. Everyone now knows that if “someone needs a job, go online” (Beshara 116). All of these sites offer great features like job search agents (an automated that alerts when a job matching criteria has been posted), free resume posting, saving and cover letters, and many more. Thousands of companies use these job boards to post advertisements and search people’s resumes. There is a huge pool of applicants and it seems like everyone who is anyone is on Facebook and MySpace.

However, newspaper is still a best source to find a job. Job seekers have gotten lazy and use online search agents exclusively to find them jobs. People just wait around for emails to tell them to go apply. Not as many people read the want ads anymore right there they have already weeded out quite a bit of competition. Lack of competition greatly increases one’s chance of landing an interview.

Some of the downfalls of traditional print classifieds still take place online. One will find job postings that are always listed. Without a doubt, one could go online now and still find he had a promising career as a model scout or as a teacher at local computer school (no computer experience required!). This phenomenon is simply more prolific online because one is exposed to more ads. As Tony Beshara (116) notes, “The bigger the jobs site the more competition for the job”. Millions of people are registered with these sites. They all have their search agents working for them and they all can click “email my resume” to the job listing just as easy as everyone can. By sheer numbers alone, one had a tremendous uphill battle on the big job sites (Beshara 120).

These websites would not be as popular as they are if they did not produce results though, right? The question boils down to, how well do they work for recent college graduates? Robert T. Uda suggests that many of these websites have specific corners dedicated to recent college graduates and entry-level positions (Uda 159). These areas do give one some good advice on job searching. The best feature is the bulletin board where one can post questions to career counselors and get support from other graduates going through the same thing (Uda 159).

At the end of the day one does not want counseling, one wants a job. Will he get one from one of these social media sites? The answer is probably not for a recent college graduates (Uda 160). The big job boards are excellent for finding IT/Computer jobs, engineering, sales, and certain areas of healthcare. For the vast majority of jobs posted, 3-5 years experience is required (Uda 160).

There are entry-level positions listed on these sites. Lauri Harwood suggests that they are the same types of jobs offered to recruiters and promoted at job fairs (Harwood viii). They are not bad jobs and they are with good companies, but there is a lot of competition. One can get a job from these sites, but his odds greatly increase three to five years from now. Today it is jobseeker against one million other college graduates with the same experience. Five years from now, it might just be him against 100,000 people with the same experience. Bottom line is that one get can get a job off these social media sites, but there is lots of competition. Therefore, newspaper is a best source to find a job.

Works Cited

Beshara, Tony. The Job Search Solution: The Ultimate System for Finding a Great Job Now. New York, Broadway: AMACOM Division of American Management Association, 2012. Print.

Harwood, Lauri. Your Career: How to Make it Happen. Southwestern: Cengage Learning, 2012. Print.

Uda, Robert T. Career Quest for College Graduates: Developing a Successful Career by Leveraging Each of Your Jobs. Bloomington, Indiana: iUniverse, 2005. Print.